Fragile Neighborhoods

An “essential and engaging ” (Richard Florida) exploration of social decline in America: its true causes and the practical steps each of us can take to combat it, starting with the places we call home. The neighborhoods we live in impact our lives in so many ways: they determine who we know, what resources and opportunities we have access to, the quality of schools our kids go to, our sense of security and belonging, and even how long we live. Yet too many of us live in neighborhoods plagued by rising crime, school violence, family disintegration, addiction, alienation, and despair. Even the wealthiest neighborhoods are not immune; while poverty exacerbates these challenges, they exist in zip codes rich and poor, rural and urban, and everything in between. In Fragile Neighborhoods, fragile states expert Seth D. Kaplan offers a bold new vision for addressing social decline in America, one zip code at a time. By revitalizing our local institutions—and the social ties that knit them together—we can all turn our neighborhoods into places where people and families can thrive. Readers will meet the innovative individuals and organizations pioneering new approaches to everything from youth mentoring to affordable housing: people like Dreama, a former lawyer whose organization works with local leaders and educators in rural Appalachia to equip young people with the social support they need to succeed in school; and Chris, whose Detroit-based non-profit turns vacant school buildings into community resource hubs. Along the way, Kaplan offers a set of practical lessons to inspire similar work, reminding us that when change is hyperlocal, everyone has the opportunity to contribute.

Sustainable Built Environment is a component of Encyclopedia of Technology, Information, and Systems Management Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Environmental conservation and technological innovation are two principal forces that drive the building industry toward the future. Technological innovation offers many opportunities to make buildings more dynamic and comfortable, and occupants more comfortable and productive. The necessity of environmental conservation, on the other hand, compels all types of developments and human activities to be environmentally responsive. The content of the Theme on Sustainable Built Environment is organized with state-of-the-art presentations covering several topics: Urban Design ; Emerging Issues in Building Design; Environment, Energy and Health in Housing Design; Culture, Management Strategies, and Policy Issues in the Sustainable Built Environment; Using Technology to Improve the Quality of City Life; Urban and Regional Transportation, which are then expanded into multiple subtopics, each as a chapter. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

Benjamin Looker investigates the cultural, social, and economic complexities of the idea of “neighborhood” in postwar America. In the face of urban decline, competing visions of the city neighborhood's significance and purpose became proxies for broader debates over the meaning and limits of American democracy. Looker examines radically different neighborhood visions—by urban artists, critics, writers, and activists—to show how sociological debates over what neighborhood values resonated in art, political discourse, and popular culture. The neighborhood-—both the epitome of urban life and, in its insularity, an escape from it—was where twentieth-century urban Americans worked out solutions to tensions between atomization or overcrowding, harsh segregation or stifling statism, ethnic assimilation or cultural fragmentation.

An examination of environmental revitalization efforts in low-income communities in Boston, Barcelona, and Havana that help heal traumatized urban neighborhoods. Environmental justice as studied in a variety of disciplines is most often associated with redressing disproportionate exposure to pollution, contamination, and toxic sites. In Neighborhood as Refuge, Isabelle Anguelovski takes a broader view of environmental justice, examining wide-ranging comprehensive efforts at neighborhood environmental revitalization that include parks, urban agriculture, fresh food markets, playgrounds, housing, and waste management. She investigates and compares three minority, low-income neighborhoods that organized to improve environmental quality and livability: Casc Antic, in Barcelona; Dudley, in the Roxbury section of Boston; and Cayo Hueso, in Havana. Despite the differing histories and political contexts of these three communities, Anguelovski finds similar patterns of activism. She shows that behind successful revitalization efforts is what she calls “bottom to bottom” networking, powered by broad coalitions of residents, community organizations, architects, artists, funders, political leaders, and at times environmental advocacy groups. Anguelovski also describes how, over time, environmental projects provide psychological benefits, serving as a way to heal a marginalized and environmentally traumatized urban neighborhood. They encourage a sense of rootedness and of attachment to place, creating safe havens that offer residents a space for recovery. They also help to bolster residents' ability to deal with the negative dynamics of discrimination and provide spaces for broader political struggles including gentrification. Drawing on the cases of Barcelona, Boston, and Havana, Anguelovski presents a new holistic framework for understanding environmental justice action in cities, with the right to a healthy community environment at its core.

Community, home, and identity are concepts that have concerned scholars in a variety of fields for some time. Legal scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and economists, among others, have studied the impacts of home and community on one's identity and how one's identity is manifested in one's home and in one's community. This volume brings together some of the leading thinkers about the connections between community, home and identity. Several chapters address how the law and lawyers contribute (or detract) from the creation and maintenance of community and, in some cases, the conscious destruction of communities. Others examine the protection of individual and group identities through rules related to property title and use of such things as Home and 'identity property'.